Monday, September 30, 2013

This is will a terrific
addition to the elementary science classroom for
studying buoyancy, floating and sinking, constructing things and
experimentation.

We have Archie the Goat and
Skinny the Hen arriving at a castle surrounded by a moat. Archie, who has a leaning towards a
scientific nature, is not inclined to take the drawbridge option, unlike
Skinny. “This is no time for a drawbridge.
This is a time for science!” Archie declares.

So, we get a series of
trials of different floating contraptions made up primarily of a barrel with
various amounts of buttermilk inside.
The S.S. Buttermilk, filled with buttermilk promptly sinks when cast off
into the moat. The S.S. Empty promptly
tips over because it is too unstable without any buttermilk inside. The S.S. Ballast is just right – it floats
and sinks!

By the book’s end, Skinny is
no longer a skinny hen due to drinking vast quantities of buttermilk and the
Queen who lives in the castle isn't too impressed when she finds out that
Archie doesn't have her buttermilk. The
life of a scientist is not an easy one.

The illustrations convey the
comic sensibility of the story. An author’s note fills the reader in on a
famous Greek scientist (of the human persuasion not the goat kind) Archimedes and
his principles about water displacement.

Monday, September 23, 2013

As I was gathering resources
around the ‘big idea’ of awakening earlier this past summer, I thought about
how travel often ‘awakens’ us to cultural awareness and self discovery and
thought I had found a great resource.

Imagine then a
fifteen-year-old boy taken from this home on an island around Tierra del Fuego
in 1830 and transplanted to London. What did this boy awaken to? What did he learn about the people of London? What did he learn about himself?

In Jemmy Button by
Jennifer Uman and Valerio Vidali, a brief account of the true story of
Orundellico (his real name), we can get a general impression of what a culture
shock this young man experienced in these circumstances.

And a general impression is
the best we get with this picture book.
The experience is described in fairly benign terms, “one day a boat came
with visitors”, “they invited the boy to visit their land”, and “one of the
visitors opened his hand to reveal a button made from the ocean’s most
magnificent pearl. They gave it to the
boy’s family.”

I had a feeling that this
was likely glossing over some of the facts.
How likely was it that Captain Robert FitzRoy ‘invited’ Orundellico to
visit London?

The book describes the long
ocean voyage and what Jemmy would have seen in this vast, bustling city. It tells of his experiences, which sound like
a whirlwind of social events (even to meeting King William IV and Queen
Adelaide) and a little of his homesickness.
He eventually returns to his homeland where is resumes his traditional
ways, shedding his European clothing and supposedly with “great effort, he
learned his native language.”(from last page)

I was left with a lot of
unanswered questions after reading this picture book. A quick Google search fills in a few of the
details which are more of what I expected: Jemmy was one of four hostages taken
back to London with the idea to educate and Christianize them to Victorian
civilities, so that they could be sent back back to their homeland to educate
their own people. Very little about this historical episode really fits with
the gentle, dreamy story depicted in the picture book.

I know this is a story for
children and that this isn't the place to hash out the details of Britain’s imperialistic
intentions. I know the focus of the
story is on the ‘wonder’ of being in a totally foreign environment and that by
the end Jemmy knows where his home is.
(In reality, it is thought that Jemmy might have chosen to stay in London if given the chance and was initially unhappy at
being returned to South America.)

On that level, the story
works. Its unlikely children will have the same questions I do and will enjoy
the story of Jemmy. It’s likely they’ll
see Jemmy as having a grand adventure.

But I'm left wondering,
what’s the point of that when this is based on a true story?

Check out Nonfiction Monday at Sally's Bookshelf for a blog-wide review of nonfiction children's literature.

All three introduced
themselves to Louis Leakey, and although none
were trained scientists, each impressed Leakey
and with his support found funds to send them into the field, Jane
Goodall to Africa to study chimpanzees, Dian Fossey, also to Africa to study
mountain gorillas and Birute Galdikas to Indonesia to study orangutans.

Told as a graphic novel, all
three stories succinctly cover their initial meetings with Leakey, early
experiences in the field, with brief insights into their personalities. The stories also overlap as the women did occasionally
meet. Their passion for the work in well
depicted as well as some of their struggles.

Great production value with
glossy pages and coloured illustrations.
Each woman is given a distinct voice and it’s easy to follow the shifts
between them.

Highly
recommended for grades 7/8 and up.Check out Nonfiction Monday, a blogging event that celebrates nonfiction children's literature. This week's event is hosted by Booktalking.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

The academic school year is just
underway and Line 135 by Germano Zullo is a great reminder about
possibilities.

A little girl is on a train
journey to visit her grandmother who lives in the country. As she passes through the city landscape and
countryside, she’s excited to think that one day she will be big enough to
travel the whole world.

Is doesn't matter that both
her mother and grandmother try to tone down her dream by telling her that that’s
impossible, that she’s too small, and
that knowing yourself is hard enough.

But our intrepid future traveler will not be denied. She holds
firmly to her belief that once she’s big enough she will go everywhere, here,
there, this way, that way and see the entire world. She’ll prove to her mother and grandmother
that it is possible and that they've only forgotten this.

It’s one of those stories
that works for many ages because it captures very childlike thoughts but with a
sophisticated overlying meaning about not forgetting what is possible.

The line found in the title
of the book is the train line of course, the line that passes through varying
landscapes, journeys and ultimately, lives.
To heighten this awareness of lines, all the illustrations are composed of
highly detailed, thin, black line drawings.
The only colour is the brightly hued train.

Another book that I've written about that came to mind when I read Line 135 is Stormy Night by Michele Lemieux.
Both share the same kind of line drawings and kind of touches on the
questioning and questing that goes on in the minds of young people.

One other book that twigged was the Lost Thing by Shaun Tan which touches on how we can lose our ability to
see and take pleasures in our lives as we grow older. (Click here to see past blog.) Line 135 is less melancholy focused on a world filled with possibilities.

Monday, September 9, 2013

It’s another handmade book
with gorgeous textured paper and coloured printed illustrations (you can smell
the ink) that are so lush and vibrant they shimmy on the page. A piece of art you can hold in your
hands. (Has anyone noticed that Tara has started numbering their handmade books?)

The author/illustrator,
Rambharos Jha is an artist born in the Mithila region in India. Growing up, he was influenced by the women
who traditionally painted the walls, floors and courtyards of their homes
during festivals, participating in a government supported program that gave them
opportunities to earn a living from their artistic endeavours.

Rambharos Jha learned to
draw by watching. He came to appreciate
the accessibility of the dyes and colours derived from nature, local markets
and household detritus (such as lamp soot) that coloured his paints.

Starting with Hindu
mythology, his art work reflected these traditional stories while he learned
how to detail in a traditional style and motifs. Gradually, he began to follow his “own
creative impulse, and to register the impact, like all artists do, of my
surroundings, the place and time I found myself in…I was now beginning to
journey into my imagination. I was also working with new colours, having begun
to use acrylic paint. During this experimental
phase, I started doing pictures of water…”

In this book, his
illustrations reflect the meshing traditional motifs (fish, turtles, crabs, snakes)
and traditional line patterning with his interest in the natural world centred
around water.

"It is an enormous challenge, even
technically speaking: how for instance, is he to show movement using the
conventions of an art form that is essentially static?Rambharos does it masterfully: he adapts the
Mithila tradition of signifying water through fine lines but extends it into a
complex whorl of eddies and currents.He
solves the problem of naturalism by side-stepping it elegantly, giving his
fish, tortoises and crabs and home and habitat in water – while keeping
essentially with their traditional symbolic representation.Sometimes he invents creatures like the
lobster who never appear in Mithila art.At other times he plays with his swans and lotuses as they appear within
a conventional Mithila composition." --from publisher, Gita Wolf

This is the journey of many
artists. Creativity is about blending tradition with the artist's own yearnings to create something
fresh and of their own.

Highly recommended. This book is an art piece
and could be used with all age groups for that reason alone.

Today is Nonfiction Monday, a blogging event that celebrates nonfiction children's literature. Please stop by Wendie's Wanderings for see a raft of reviews.

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About Me

I am the reference coordinator at The Doucette Library of Teaching Resources, a curriculum library in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary.
I love connecting education students and teachers with engaging and exciting resources for classroom teaching. I believe that resources that get me excited (or those that get you excited) are the ones with the best potential to get kids interested in learning about - well, everything. Finding those books that connect to the real world are the ones I enjoy promoting the most.